Galronus’ jaw hardened. The freshness of the trail suggested that any meeting between this force and the Roman expeditionary legions was likely still in progress. If it was already over, then it would have to have been a massacre one way or the other. Those possibilities didn’t bear thinking about.
“Keep to your tired mounts!” he called to the men gathered around him. “As soon as we are close enough to hear the battle, change mounts and set the worn horses to graze. Then we muster and charge.”
One of the young Atrebate nobles shook his head. “If we do not tether the horses, they may bolt. These are strong, noble and costly beasts.”
“And your fathers and their chieftain have donated their services to our cause. You will follow my orders, or you will dishonour the lord of the Atrebates in your defiance.”
Satisfied with the look of sullen and grudging acceptance in the young man’s features, Galronus squared his shoulders and sat straighter.
“Quickly now. To the coast and battle!”
Fronto stormed along the line of fighting men. Despite having apparently issued the order to his men to make sure their legate stayed safely out of trouble, Carbo was inaccessible, fighting somewhere in the front line where Fronto could hear his bellowed commands even though he couldn’t see him.
The men of the cohort might have effectively locked him out of their fight, but there would come a point where the line of legionaries came to an end, where the way had been left for the Britons to escape the field.
For a few minutes, Fronto had wondered whether that would truly be likely. The enemy had fought them with unending vigour and seemed undaunted by this ‘boxing in’ of their army. But in the last minute the atmosphere had changed subtly. That breaking point had almost been reached. He could feel it crackling in the air like the promise of lightning.
Sure enough, there, a few yards ahead, the last century in the cohort had been fielded at double the density and only half the width, providing extra protection for their own flank — it was not unknown for a surrounded enemy to outflank their own attackers. Had the Britons worked it out, it could have been easy enough for them to send out a large enough force to break around the edge of the Roman line and start smashing them to pieces.
Fortunately, a combination of two elements kept the flank safe. Firstly: the enemy’s chaotic nature where, rather than thinking on the grand scale of how to win a battle, the Britons were simply falling over each other to get at the nearest Roman, while their cavalry flittered uselessly amongst them and around the edge — scattered and ineffective. Secondly: years of drilling and practising under first Priscus and then Carbo had kept the Tenth not only strong and disciplined, but also adaptable and able to think for themselves when required. On the very flank, the primus pilus had placed his most trusted veterans, interspaced with his biggest and strongest men. Behind them, in the subsequent rows were fast men capable of responding to threats speedily and efficiently. Every time the enemy tried to break the end of the Roman line through brute force they encountered only the mean and brutal response of Carbo’s bear-like veterans. Every time a small group attempted to move around them to turn the flank, a highly mobile force of legionaries appeared as if from nowhere to deal with them.
It was working.
It was also where Fronto would be able to join the fight without being pushed out.
“Cavalry!”
Even as he’d started to pick up the pace to reach a fighting position, nearing the end of the line, Fronto looked up at the shout from a nearby legionary and saw a force of hundreds of Celtic horse bearing down on them from the woodlands. It appeared the Britons were not alone.
“Hold the line. Don’t worry about that cavalry” Fronto bellowed. “Just hold the line!”
Yet despite his command, the legate was no longer sure about making a fight of it at the line’s end. If that cavalry came in at a charge and chose to hit this particular position, he’d be trampled before he even had a chance to bloody his blade.
Tucking his gladius under his shield arm and stepping back away from the fight, Fronto reached up to the amulet supposedly representing Fortuna and gave it a little caress for luck as his eyes roved this way and that, trying to take it all in. A groan was rising from the Roman ranks as they realised that Celtic reinforcements meant it was almost certainly over, though the officers back at the main legion force were still pushing their men as the buccina and cornu blasts confirmed.
And then the strangest thing happened.
Even as the Roman force began to sag with the dire expectation of death, a bellow of something unintelligible arose from somewhere in the crowd of Britons and was echoed back and forth until it became a moan of despair. The few horsemen who were still free at the periphery of the fight made to escape, running not for the relief force, but obliquely, into the woods.
Fronto stared as the mass of footmen broke in an instant and began to flee as best they could. His eyes followed them and paused for a moment on the newly-arrived cavalry. Blinking, he focused on the force once more. No, his eyes had not deceived him: that was a Roman banner among them.
Galronus!
Even as the allied cavalry slammed into the fleeing Britons driving them into a frenzy of fear, Fronto straightened with a grin — the tables had just turned unexpectedly.
Determinedly, he collected his sword from beneath his armpit once more and took a step forward. Was he being stupid? Though Galronus’ cavalry had almost sealed in the enemy within a neat box, there were still gaps where the Britons leaked out making for safety as best they could like water bursting from holes in a dam, and he’d made his way to a position directly between them and their objective.
Most of the Britons, however, were now purely intent on escape, fleeing past him, heedless of this lone Roman officer and flowing around him like a stream around a rock as he kept his shield forward to ward off any stray blades while he slashed and struck at the figures running to either side of him.
A blow struck his back and he wondered for a moment whether it would be mortal. It would be a truly awful fate to die and be buried in this wet, forbidding, sickening land.
“Watch your back, sir.”
Blinking, he realised that the blow had not been an enemy weapon, but rather a legionary falling in at his side, protecting him. Even as he nodded at the man, a similar thump announced the presence of a soldier at his other side, effectively forming a small shield wall on his position. Did Carbo’s interference know no bounds? Now men were being sent from the cohort to protect him? Somewhere deep in his soul, Fronto started to seethe.
Safer than he had any intention of being, the legate moved his shield slightly to gain a better idea of what was going on amid the chaos of fleeing Britons, hefting it sharply back into position just in time to take the blow of the sword he’d fleetingly seen coming. The point of the long, Celtic sword slammed through the layered boards and leather of the shield, stopping alarmingly close to his sternum and then ripping back out, tearing pieces of shield with it.
Concerned, Fronto risked rising momentarily to peer over the very top of the shield.
He blinked in shock.
The man before him was a druid!
There could be no doubting it. The grey-white robe and the feathers and bones braided into his hair and long beard that tapered to twin forks spoke volumes about the man’s status. What surprised Fronto more, though, was the martial aspect of this druid. While he’d seen their kin in Gaul bearing swords, he’d never imagined them as true warriors. This one, though, looked thoroughly at home with his heavy sword as he drew it back with a muscular arm for another blow. His other hand held no shield, but a short stabbing spear, which he was raising for a thrust over the top of Fronto’s shield. The big man’s hair was held back by that appeared to be a plain iron crown.